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TAG: Lauri Stevens

If you follow a lot more people than follow you back, Twitter won’t allow you to follow more people

There are tens of thousands of third-party applications to help us use Twitter. Hundreds of those are designed specifically to help determine who to unfollow. Why would you want to unfollow someone? Two reasons to unfollow someone are:

1. Because the account is inactive; and

2. Because they’re not following you.

It’s good to keep your following well-maintained. If you follow a lot more people than follow you back, Twitter will not allow you to follow more people. Additionally, in case it matters to you, on Twitter, it’s not considered good form. Although there are many tools to help with this, here are two I use often:

1. Untweeps.com: This handy little tool allows you to sign in with your Twitter account and see the people you follow who haven’t tweeted in months. You can select how many days it’s been and then select who to unfollow.

2. JustUnfollow.com: Sign in with your Twitter credentials. The next screen allows you to decide if you want to view unfollowers (those you follow who don’t follow you) or fans (those who follow you who you don’t follow). Both are good to take a look at and decide for yourself if you’d like to make adjustments.

After the rioting in Vancouver, following the Canucks Stanley Cup loss to the Bruins, the city is cleaning up and repairing the millions of dollars of damage. Identifying and arresting responsible parties is likely to continue however for several weeks if not months into the future. But, like never before, the intelligence being gathered is in large part from social media networks or websites created precisely for that purpose, and citizen observers are supplying literally hundred of photos and videos.

But it’s not without controversy. The whole episode has raised many questions and will likely fuel dialog far into the future.

2. The Insurance Commission of B.C. has offered its facial recognition technology and drivers’ license photo database to law enforcement to help i.d. the perpetrators. Civil liberties experts are crying foul.

3. What about due process? Is what we think we see in a digital image what happened? Are people being falsely accused?

LEOs can take command of, or at least greatly influence, the story told online by witnesses, speculators & the media

Just as police officers can control a crime scene by cordoning the area, they can also use social media to control stories told online by witnesses, speculators and the media.

Police officers are quick to block off a crime scene by cordoning the area with yellow tape. It’s amazing how that 3″ plastic tape keeps law enforcement in control of the crime scene. It’s some powerful stuff.

Social media, especially Twitter, is also a powerful way for law officers to control, or at least greatly influence, the virtual scene, that is, the story that’s told online by witnesses, speculators, the media and you.

Any time a serious event happens or there’s a protest, such as with the announcement of a verdict or sentencing in a high-profile case, people are going to be on Twitter talking about it. They follow the conversation on Twitter with the use of a hashtag, which is the # sign in front of any word or acronym. Placing the # sign in front of a word makes it clickable. Click on it and you see every tweet with that hashtag in it.

Law enforcement can inject messages of public safety into the Twitter stream of any conversation by also using the accepted hashtag for that event. If you find yourself involved in a situation with naysayers spreading rumors, set the record straight by tweeting the real deal right into the conversation by including the hashtag in your official tweets.

Creating lists on Twitter is a good way to prevent being overwhelmed with the tweets of everybody you follow.

For some time now, Twitter has offered users the ability to create lists of Twitter accounts. Every user can make up to 20 lists. On your Twitter page, find the drop-down menu that says “lists.” It’s not difficult to figure out how to use the list feature from there.

You might like to put neighboring law enforcement agencies on a list, your agency’s tweeting officers on another list, social media authorities on another, local media on another, and so on. If you’re familiar with Tweetdeck or HootSuite, you can then import those lists creating a separate stream for each, and monitor them with the attention to each you feel is appropriate. It’s a good way to not get overwhelmed with the tweets of everybody you follow.

The cool thing about lists is that you can keep them private. If you create a private list, people on it don’t know they’re on it. This is useful if you want to keep an eye on some people without them knowing it. Add to that, you can put Twitter accounts on a list whether you’re following them or not. This way, you can follow tweets of a select group of people without them knowing the cops are on their tail, twitterly speaking.

Also of note: You can follow lists others have created the same way you can create and follow your own lists.

Don’t let geolocation coordinates undermine your own safety

Geolocation coordinates can help you in an investigation, but they can also put your safety at risk. Turn off geolocation functions on your computers and smartphones. Photo iStock

Geolocation coordinates are everywhere in social networking these days. If you’re an investigator, you’ve probably figured out how useful such data can be to link someone to a time and a place.

Remember: Your own geolocation data can also be used to undermine your own safety. To help keep yourself, your family and officers at your department safe, do the following:

1. Turn off geolocation on your smartphones–on the phone itself and within the camera function. On a Blackberry, click Menu and then Turn Off GPS. On an iPhone go to Settings, then General. On an Android, from within the camera application, go to Location and Security and Disable GPS.

2. Turn geolocation off within the mobile apps installed on your smartphone as appropriate.

3. Turn geolocation off on social networks you access from a computer or tablet, such as an iPad.

4. Any digital photograph you take can have lat and long embedded. Digital cameras, especially late models, are likely to store this data with every image. If you take a photo of your children and post that photo online, you’ve just potentially told people where to find your kids.

5. Be mindful of all of the above advice if you play FourSquare or use Facebook Places.

Finally, and perhaps most important, have a sit-down with your kids and fellow officers, and make sure they understand these risks, as well.

About ConnectedCOPS

The vision behind ConnectedCOPS is to enhance law officers’ ability to succeed with social media tools by providing insight, encouragement, education and the overall support required. It is also to promote the insightful thoughts of the law enforcement social media visionaries by providing them a voice on this blog.